Thank you for your post TQ. Like Dan, I was puzzled about the abbreviations until I spotted your biblio at the end of your post. Your input is really appreciated and helpful to newbies like myself.

Ditto Dan...plz don't stay away
from our Keto Group forum becuz
of me or anything that happened...
that's all past and forgotten..yes?

Your enthusiasm and success is
missed by all, I'm sure...

No hard feelings at all here...
yes?..ok with you, plz..?

'No problem TQ. I had a bad day and shouldn't off been so harsh. I apologize.

This group is very helpful to me and I like your posts very much!

Sometimes I don't post replies very quickly, currently I work two jobs, about 9 + 4 hours a day. This group is my medicine and relief. It makes me feel better when I am helping anyone.

I hope this helps,

Dan the Man from Michigan'

Yah...helps LoadsFull...!
Onwards and Back to the Future...
Success2UsAll!

Just a little twist on the poop scoop if I may.....

I have also experienced this more during keto, likely because of lack of fiber for my own body, however....

Depending on the severity, the bf and I are firm (no pun intended) believers in the squatty potty. K. So. You don't need to rush out and get this seemingly weird bathroom thing. The basic premise is humans are designed to squat when they poop. But thanks to Mr. John T. Crapper who invented the toilet, we actually have to fight against our bodies design to clear the plumbing as is were.

Squatty potty is the comercial name for a thing you put around the toilet to put your feet in to change the angle of your hips while number twoing. But you could just discretely have a stack of books or anything else just to raise up your feet a bit. We actually just use the laundry hamper. We turn it on it's side, pull it close to the toilet, put feet up and woila! Done in seconds.

He uses it all the time. I only use it when I'm constipated.

If its really bad and painful (pains down my legs etc) I'll drink a senna based tea. But if you try Senna, as someone else said, go easy. It REALLY works. As someone else said, it is a stimulant. But if all else fails, before you break out the ex-lax.

Here we actuall call it Holy Sh... Tea. Because if you drink too much...

as for the psyllium-snot experience.... sorry you had to go through that. If you must drink it, I'm all for the mix and immediately chug it variation. Don't give it time to expand.

As for the powder based fiber supp's. I really wanted it to work for me. But it gave me gas to the point I was always in pain. Unbelievable gas! Just something to watch for. I'm sure it is not the same for everyone or they wouldn't sell it. Just info.

HTH

radiii wrote: »

TMI Alert:

Squatty potty is legit. I am finishing up (my last appointment is today, in fact!) 5 months of Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy (pelvic floor = urinary/bowel/sexual function).

They have squatty potties in all of their bathrooms there, and they have them along w/ the computers that do biofeedback (hook up electrodes to measure muscle tension). Sitting in a good posture activates a bunch of stability muscles everywhere and there's more tension. Sitting with a bit of a forward lean relaxes things a little. Busting out the squatty potty and raising the legs while still sitting at the same height forces an extra level of relaxation that is difficult to obtain otherwise. This leads to healthier pooping.

Sounds silly, but when you describe a (ahem) "Bathroom issue" to the therapist and they can immediately say "oh let me show you this" and you can see a graph on a computer screen showing exactly what they're talking about, its pretty darn convincing.

I also had to use the biofreedback thing to recognize massive amounts of tension I had due to some past trauma (some bad/painful infections leading me to tightening up to "protect" everything permanently) and learn how to actively relax, which took a couple months. But this stuff did make a noticible diference in the quality of my... bathroom time :P

Huh! who knew! That's interesting. I just know it works for us!

We learned about it from a woman named Katy Bowman. She's a biomechanist and is truely fascinating when it comes to health from a mechanical point of view. Dan, as an engineer you might find her interesting! She has extremely easy ways to increase health through movement, to build it right into your life. She has her own podcast and blog but you can find her in interviews all over. Just google her name. I was convinced just listening to her, but if someone could show me a graph, showing changes in real time, for sure I'd be convinced! Cool.

I sometimes put psyllium husk in my cooking, like with ground almonds and eggs to make "buns". I also take "Natural Calm" magnesium supplement before bed, and love that it serves several purposes in that it restores my body's magnesium deficiencies, calms my tired and jumpy muscles and remedies constipation. The tea works well too, I like Traditional Medicinals" versions.

More than you ever wnated to know about pooping to follow, seriously, if you're not interested, skip this:

DittoDan wrote: »

At some point when I get more weight off, I will start exercising again...

Appropriate level exercise for you should help here, not hurt. Ok, so lets go above and beyond the squatty potty here, since I literally just did this two months ago in physical therapy (and i'm not directing this AT you Dan, just using this quote as a jumping point to talk about this)

What I'm descirbing won't work for everyone, if you have a legit digestive disorder, if you have IBS, maybe one of 100 other things, maybe this won't work perfectly for you.

1) NO STRAINING. Ever. Even if it works, obviously there are health risks (hemmorhoids, prolapse) that are not good. But also, its counterproductive. It might get the job done in the moment, but it makes things worse overall. You probably aren't fully emptying if you strain, which confuses the system and signals for next time, I belive this can build on itself forever and make things slowly worse and worse.

2) Eat when you first wake up. Food stimulates the digestive system to start moving.

3) Get some exercise in the morning. Exercise stimulates things to move. Talk to any runner, google "Runner's trots"

4) Drink something hot in the morning. Hot liquid can stimulate things to move.

5) Eat regularly, every 3 hours. Eating regularly keeps the digestive system working regularly.

6) Learn to relax your pelvic muscles, ideally no pushing is required at all. Some pushing is ok, but it has to be PUSHING, not contracting. For many (me and my awful body awarenes) its confusing. I learned that if I breath in deeply and fill my stomach/push my stomach out, I can easily gently and properly push. My signal for straining/hurting myself is noticing my abs contracting. Now I'm squeezing, not pushing. Its different.


I had some other rules for myself. I was using glycerin suppositories every single night an hour before bed b/c I had some bloating/discomfort issues that this would relieve. I was told I was trianing my body to be ready to go to the bathroom at that time, and making that problem worse.

Fiber is a recommendation, but all of us low carbers already know about this. I am currently still using chia seeds to get fiber, I expect to stop this at some point to experiement and see if I need it or not.


I was someone who used a suppository to relieve gas and occasionally poop before bed, and who strained like hell every day around lunchtime to go.

Within two weeks of following these suggestions to the letter, and using the squatty potty, I found myself having no effort (and I mean literally, ZERO pushing, no effort), only one wipe required, perfect poops. My physical therapist knew how important keto was to me. She didn't ask me to change that. She knew I'd ignore everything else she said if she did. Because she didn't threaten my keto ways, I was wiling to follow every other piece of advice she gave for a few weeks even though that did require some changes on my part.


NOW, a lot of those pieces of advice I don't like. I don't like eating every 3 hours. I don't like exercising in the morning. I don't like etaing when I first wake up, I like intermittent fasting.

But, the point is, I learned how I *could* do it perfectly, I learned to notice when I was harming myself, and now I can learn how to tailor my habits around that. I stopped eating every 3 hours almost immediately. Most mornings I poop before I eat. Not every morning, some mornings I can tell its just not gonna happen like I want, so I go make my bacon and eggs earlier than I'd like ideally. As my PT told me, "that's ok, now you have a choice, before you didn't, so you can figure out what to do".


The first couple "no straining no matter what, no suppositories" days were a bit tough for me. But this is something that feeds on itself. Once you do it right once, you can build from it. I asked my PT about this specifically when I was struggling, she described many people having an "a-ha" moment where things went from uncomfortable to perfect overnight and it was perfect forever after that.


How many people with chronic consipation can be resolved entirely by following these steps? I don't know. I don't want to point at everyone and say "come on, its easy", because everyone is different.


But I can tell you all that I, very recently, as part of spending literally thousands of dollars on therapy (copays plus other major changes I chose to make at home to improve things like a standing desk, etc, to get me off my *kitten*), I drastically changed these things and its an honest to god quality of life improvement. So there you go, do with this what you will

warm lemon water in the a.m.
mag citrate at night
lots of water
lots of quality fat
probiotics

those work for me. i don't do cheese very often at all, however. perhaps once a week.